DUBLIN (AP) _ A famed entrepreneur who was once rated Ireland's richest person was declared bankrupt Monday as a bank pursues him for debts exceeding (euro) 2.1 billion ($2.7 billion).
Lawyers for tycoon Sean Quinn withdrew his opposition to a Republic of Ireland bankruptcy order sought by the former Anglo Irish Bank, the reckless lender at the center of Ireland's calamitous property crash.
The bankruptcy judgment will force a thorough court investigation of Quinn's finances, which the bank hopes will reveal capital and assets that it can reclaim from Quinn, his wife and five children.
Quinn, 64, didn't attend Monday's court hearing. He issued a statement accusing the bank of pursuing ``a personal vendetta'' and declaring that the ``judgment in no way improves Anglo's prospects of recovering money for the taxpayer.''
Quinn had a reported 2007 net worth of (euro) 4.7 billion ($6 billion) but sank much of his fortune into Anglo months before the bank _ the most aggressive lender to Ireland's construction barons _ suffered crippling losses as the country's decade-long property bubble burst.
The Quinn family secretly built up to a 28 percent stake in Anglo shares using an ill-regulated financial instrument that hid the scale of their investment from other stockholders. As Anglo's share price plunged, Quinn says the bank encouraged his family to borrow hundreds of millions specifically to buy more Anglo stock, a charge the bank denies.
Ireland nationalized Anglo in 2009 to prevent its collapse, wiping out a Quinn family investment estimated at (euro) 2.8 billion. The government last year renamed Anglo as the Irish Bank Resolution Corp., or IBRC. Its bailout is expected to cost taxpayers (euro) 29 billion, a bill so great it overwhelmed Ireland's finances and forced the government last year to negotiate a humiliating loan pact with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Dublin Commercial Court Justice Elizabeth Dunne told Quinn's lawyer Gavin Simons that Quinn would have to appear in person in coming days to provide documents showing how much he's worth today.
Last week Quinn lost a Belfast legal battle to retain bankruptcy protection in the neighboring British territory of Northern Ireland. The judge there ruled that Quinn had misled a previous Belfast court that his main base of business was in Northern Ireland, rather than the Republic of Ireland.
``I never done a day's work from southern Ireland in my life,'' Quinn, who has lived for decades in the Republic of Ireland, insisted to reporters outside the Belfast court last week.
Dublin-based IBRC would have faced greater difficulty pursuing Quinn for debts in Northern Ireland. Quinn also could have returned to business within a year under U.K. bankruptcy law, whereas the Irish law prevent bankrupts from holding company directorships for up to 12 years.
Quinn said the tougher Irish rules meant he would be too old _ 76 in the year 2024 _ to direct any new companies then.
``Anglo achieved their goal of ensuring that I will never create another job,'' he said of Monday's judgment.
Quinn boasts one of Ireland's most celebrated rags-to-riches stories. He grew up on a border farm in Northern Ireland's County Fermanagh, left school barely literate at 14 and started his first construction-gravel business with a 100-pound ($150) bank loan.
Within three decades Quinn had transformed his quarry into a nationwide cement company. He built and bought luxury hotels, pubs, apartment complexes and commercial properties throughout Ireland, Britain, Eastern Europe and Asia; founded Ireland's third-largest insurance company; and took interests in glassworks, packaging and radiators.
In April 2011, IBRC seized ownership of his Irish-based Quinn Group, forced him and relatives off the board, and sold a majority stake in his insurance company to U.S. insurance company Liberty Mutual. In November, shortly after Quinn had secured a surprise bankruptcy-protection order in Belfast, the bank won Dublin court judgments totaling (euro) 2.16 billion ($2.7 billion) against Quinn.
A November affidavit from Quinn recorded he had less than (euro) 11,000 ($15,000) in cash in three bank accounts.
But the Quinns and IBRC are locked in several legal battles stretching from the British Virgin Islands to Cyprus over control of a commercial property empire spanning Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and India valued at more than (euro) 700 million.
The bank accuses Quinn of fraudulently shifting ownership of his foreign properties, including office blocks and shopping malls, to relatives and shell companies that remain under the Quinns' surreptitious control. The Quinns deny these charges.
His five children have filed a Dublin lawsuit against IBRC seeking to have the bulk of the family's Anglo borrowing voided on the grounds that the bank should never have lent them the money in the first place. They also are seeking to have IBRC return businesses to their ownership that were seized in April 2011.
Their lawsuit argues that Anglo misled them about the company's imminent danger of collapse and spurred them to commit market fraud by manipulating Anglo's share price. IBRC insists Anglo's loans to the Quinns were for much wider business reasons.
<한글기사>
아일랜드 최고갑부 파산 선언 왜?
유럽 경제난의 영향으로 한때 아일랜드 최고갑부로 불렸던 기업인이 파산을 선언했다.
건설재벌 션 퀸(64)은 2007년만 해도 보유 재산이 47억 유로(약 6조8천억원)에 달했지만 아일랜드 자산버블 붕괴 과정에서 연이은 투자실패로 21억 유로의 빚더미 에 올라앉은 신세로 전락했다.
퀸은 변호인을 통해 파산을 신청하고 자신과 가족들에 대한 법원의 보유재산 조사를 받기로 했다고 17일 밝혔다.
퀸의 몰락은 2007년부터 보유 재산을 앵글로 아이리시은행에 투자하면서 시작됐다.
은행 소유를 목표로 비합법적인 방법을 동원해 비밀리에 앵글로은행의 주식 28%를 사들였지만 곧바로 주가폭락 사태가 닥쳤다.
이런 상황에서도 은행이 권유한 방식으로 융자를 통한 지분확보를 계속 진행했지만 앵글로은행은 결국 파산에 이르렀다.
2009년 아일랜드 정부가 앵글로은행을 국유화하면서 퀸 일가가 투자한 28억 유로는 휴지조각이 됐다.
이후 IBRC로 이름을 바꾼 앵글로은행은 정상화에 290억 유로의 공적자금이 필요로 한 상황이어서 아일랜드 경제에 커다란 짐이 되고 있다.
퀸은 14세에 건설업에 뛰어들어 영국 아일랜드 동유럽 아시아 등 지역에서 호화호텔과 주택단지 건설을 통해 막대한 부를 이룬 입지전적인 인물.
전성기에는 건설업의 성공을 발판으로 보험업과 유리 및 전자 제조업에도 진출하는 등 아일랜드의 대표적인 사업가로서 이름을 높였다.
IBRC는 퀸을 상대로 그가 친인척과 페이퍼컴퍼니를 동원해 해외로 빼돌린 재산을 환수하기 위한 소송을 벌이고 있다.
이에 대해 퀸은 보유자산이 은행에 예치된 현금 1만1천 유로에 불과하다고 항변하고 있다
.